Annapolis, Maryland will highlight its role in the transAtlantic slave trade with a new historical marker to be erected on the City Dock. This marker comes with the news that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has designated Annapolis a site of memory associated with the organization’s Slave Route Project.
The Slave Route Project has helped identify forty-two Middle Passage ports of entry across the United States where enslaved Africans first arrived in the Americas. Annapolis is one of five such ports of entry in Maryland. The new historical marker will recognize the city’s place in the history of the slave trade and honor the people who died during the Middle Passage.
UNESCO defines sites of memory as locations which are linked to and symbolic of global memorial heritage. The designation declares Annapolis a heritage site of importance to the collective of humanity and subjects the city to protection under international treaty. Annapolis prepared the designation request with help from the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project.
The historical marker will be placed on City Dock after a series of meetings in which community members will help design the marker and select a local historian to draft the marker’s text.